A stock ticker is a scrolling display of current or recent security prices and trading volumes. Ticker symbols composed of only a few letters are widely used in the United States to identify shares of common stocks on a stock ticker. Ticker symbols are also used to identify securities of mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), as well as some options and some market indices.
Securities identified by one- or two-letter ticker symbols are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), securities identified by three letter ticker symbols are traded on either the NYSE or American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and securities identified by four- and five-letter ticker symbols are traded on the NASDAQ (an electronic stock market originally known as the “National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations”).
Securities identified by five-letter ticker symbols are usually in a special class, i.e., something other than a common stock. For example, ticker symbols for mutual funds must be five letters long and end in the letter “X”.
Securities of companies in bankruptcy are identified with a ticker symbol having the letter “Q” added as the last letter. In addition, securities of companies having ticker symbols that end in a period (“.”) followed by the letters “PK” are “pink sheet” companies, which, with the exception of a few foreign issuers, tend to be closely held, extremely small or thinly traded.
Creating an investment list at a web page (e.g., of a financial services company) is generally a ticker-symbol-dependent process. For example, in order to complete a list of target investments (e.g., as in a watchlist of prospective investments) or a list of actual investments (e.g., as in investment list 140 of the “Retirement Plan Questionnaire” of FIG. 1), an investor typically enters a ticker symbol for each company or mutual fund represented in his/her potential target portfolio (as in the case of a watchlist of prospective investments) or his/her actual portfolio (as in the case of a “Retirement Plan Questionnaire” of FIG. 1).
Entering a ticker symbol for a company or a mutual fund in an investment list frequently presents a difficulty for an investor who knows one or more words in the name of the company or mutual fund, but who does not know the ticker symbol for securities of that company or mutual fund. An example would be an investor knows that the words “Coca Cola” are part of the name of a company in his/her portfolio of equity securities, but who does not know the ticker symbol for that company's securities. Mutual funds are similarly the subject matter of this situation. An example would be an investor who readily identifies a mutual fund in which he/she holds a position by words in the name of the mutual fund (e.g., “Vanguard Energy”) but who does not know the five-letter ticker symbol for that mutual fund (e.g., “VGENX” for Vanguard Energy Fund Investor Shares).
In order to help investors generate accurate investment lists, websites of many financial services companies provide a “Symbol Lookup” button (or the like). The operation of an associated ticker symbol lookup tool is generally straight-forward. For example, if an investor types “Coca Cola” into a tool's “Symbol Lookup” field and then selects the adjacent “Lookup” button (or a similar action button), an output of companies and ticker symbols similar to the output noted in Table 1 is returned. Depending on the ticker symbol database utilized by the ticker symbol lookup tool, the ticker symbol for one or more pink sheet securities might also be returned. Pink sheet securities for “Coca Cola” companies are listed in Table 2.
TABLE 1Ticker Symbols for Companies Having “Coca Cola” in Their NameCompany NameTicker SymbolCoca-Cola Bottling Company ConsolidatedCOKECoca-Cola Company, TheKOCoca-Cola Enterprises, Inc.CCECoca-Cola FEMSA, S.A. de C.V.KOFCoca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, S.A.CCH
After reviewing company names and ticker symbols (or other related information) in an output like that of Table 1, the investor may identify the ticker symbol that represents the “Coca Cola” company that is part of his/her portfolio. For example, after reviewing the individual company names and ticker symbols of Table 1, the investor may realize that he/she owns shares of The Coca-Cola Company, which has “KO” as its ticker symbol. The investor may then copy the ticker symbol “KO” from the output of the ticker symbol lookup tool into a “Ticker Symbol” field of his/her list of actual investments.
FIG. 1 represents a web page (i.e., Retirement Plan Questionnaire) similar to one previously used by a financial services company to help account holders summarize investment and banking accounts. The page includes a traditional ticker symbol lookup tool 141. FIG. 2 is a Retirement Plan Questionnaire similar to the one depicted in FIG. 1. FIG. 2 depicts preset inputs on drop-down menu 242 that appears if “Select” is chosen under Investment Type. “Other” at 246 is the last choice on drop-down menu 242. A position in “Coca-Cola Co.,” as entered at 243 under the Description heading, is listed as an “Other” Investment Type at 245 in FIG. 2 (this position has been added in a fourth row versus the investment list 140 of FIG. 1).
Unlike the investor who reviewed an output like that of Table 1, another investor may bypass using a ticker symbol lookup tool. The fourth row under Investment Type in the Retirement Plan Questionnaire in FIG. 2 provides a likely example. The investor who completed this form selected “Other” at 245 in FIG. 2 as describing the Investment Type for his/her position in a Coca-Cola® company. The selection of “Other” allows an investor to complete an entry row in the Questionnaire without entering a ticker symbol.
The selection of “Other” may be made for a variety of reasons. For example, the investor may own “pink sheet” securities of a Coca-Cola® company, and, because “pink sheet” securities typically are only thinly traded (and often not included in the output of ticker symbol lookup tools), the investor may decide to bypass using the ticker symbol lookup tool. The investor may simply want to avoid entering a ticker symbol for a “pink sheet” security. By selecting “Other” under Investment Type, the investor can avoid such an entry.
TABLE 2Ticker Symbols for “Pink Sheet” “Coca Cola” CompaniesCompany NameTicker SymbolCOCA COLA AMATIL LTDCCLAF.PKCOCA COLA AMATIL LTDCCLAY.PKCOCA COLA FEMSA SA DCOCSF.PKCOCA COLA HELLENICCCHOF.PKCOCA COLA HELLENICCCHBF.PKCOCA COLA JAPAN COCCOJF.PKCOCA COLA WEST JAPANCCWJF.PKCOLAS SA BOULOGNECOABF.PKPANAMA COCA COLA BOTPCOK.PK
For this or variety of other possible reasons, the investor who completed the Retirement Plan Questionnaire of FIG. 2 either did not use ticker symbol lookup tool 241, or, if he/she did use the tool, he/she did not copy the ticker symbol for the “Coca Cola” company in which he/she held an equity position into the separate investment list in the Questionnaire. The investor instead selected “Other” at 245 under Investment Type and entered “Coca-Cola Co.” at 243 under Description. Each field under Description in FIGS. 1 and 2 is a text input field when “Other” is selected under Investment Type.
Many types of ticker symbol lookup tools are available other than tools 141 and 241 of FIGS. 1 and 2, respectively. For example, an “Auto Ticker Suggest” tool (set to “Company Name” with “Exact Match” checked) available through an “Advanced Search” link at www.smartmoney.com creates an alphabetical scroll of candidate company names (and assigned ticker symbols) on entry of candidate letters for a company name into the “Search Term” field of the tool.
If a user enters the letters “COC” using the “Company Name” option in the “Search Term” field of such an “Auto Ticker Suggest” tool (with “Exact Match” checked) in order to look up the ticker symbol for The Coca-Cola Company, nine company names (and their assigned ticker symbols) as noted in Table 3 are returned in alphabetical order on a drop-down scroll.
TABLE 3Company Names (and Assigned Ticker Symbols) Returned in a Scroll onEntry of “COC” in an “Auto Ticker Suggest” ToolCompany Name (Ticker Symbol)COCA COLA AMITIL LTD (CCLAY)COCA COLA BOTTLING CL CM (COKE)COCA COLA HELLENIC BTTLG (CCH)COCA-COLA CO (KO)COCA-COLA ENTERPRISES INC. (CCE)COCA-COLA FEMSA SA DE CV (KOF)COCONUT PALM ACQUISITION CORP (CNUT)COCONUT PALM ACQUISITION WTS (CNUTW)COCOPHILIPS W/I (COP#)
The Coca-Cola Company (ticker symbol: KO) appears in this output. If an investor has an equity position in The Coca-Cola Company (ticker symbol: KO), an investor must copy the “KO” ticker symbol from the drop-down scroll and re-enter it into his/her separate investment list (e.g., in order to complete a ticker symbol entry in a Questionnaire like that of FIG. 1).
A novice investor may naively consider short key words in a company name (e.g., “COCA COLA”) to be ticker symbols. Such a novice investor may input “COCA COLA” into an “Enter Symbol(s)” field of a quote tool available on a web page (e.g., of a financial services company). After selecting an adjacent “GO” button (or “SEARCH” or “LOOKUP” button or the like), he/she likely will be met with responses like those given by quote tools at finance.yahoo.com, www.schwab.com and www.fidelity.com (Table 4). Each of these quote tools interprets “COCA COLA” as representing ticker symbols for two separate companies.
TABLE 4Responses on Entering “COCA COLA” into “Enter Symbol(s)” FieldResponse throughLineMessagefinance.yahoo.com1‘coca’ is no longer valid. It has changedto COCA.PK.2No such ticker symbol. Look up symbolfor “cola”www.schwab.com1Coastcast Corporation Co.2There is no information for this symbol.www.fidelity.com1Unknown symbols. You may look upthe symbols.2—
Similarly, a novice investor who enters “Coca-Cola” (i.e., who includes a hyphen (“-”) between the words “Coca” and “Cola”) into an “Enter Symbol(s)” field of a quote tool likely will be met with responses like those generated through finance.yahoo.com, www.schwab.com and www.fidelity.com (Table 5).
TABLE 5Responses on Entering “COCA-COLA” into “Enter Symbol(s)” FieldResponse throughLineMessagefinance.yahoo.com1Invalid Ticker Symbol2‘coca-cola’ is not a valid ticker symbol.www.schwab.com1No information is availablefor COCA-COLA.2—www.fidelity.com1Unknown symbol. You may lookup the symbol.2—
In short, these quote tools require that valid ticker symbols be entered and submitted in order to provide price information on investments to which the corresponding ticker symbols are assigned. These quote tools are not robust in that they do not also return price information on the entry and submission of key words in the name of the investment (e.g., “Coca Cola”) except in so far as these words are taken to be stock ticker symbols. That is, these quote tools are not both ticker-symbol-based and investment-name-based lookup tools.
Many account holders of financial services companies often fail accurately to complete ticker-symbol entries on an investment list (particularly for mutual funds) despite the ready availability of ticker symbol lookup tools. Rather then use a ticker symbol lookup tool to find the ticker symbol assigned to a mutual fund, some account holders, in completing a Retirement Plan Questionnaire like the ones of FIGS. 1 and 2, may select “Other” (e.g., as in the third row entries at 144 and 244 under Investment Type of FIGS. 1 and 2, respectively, and the fourth row entry at 245 of FIG. 2; see also the last preset input 246 in the Investment Type drop-down menu 242 of FIG. 2) and enter a name (often incomplete) under the Description column for a mutual fund in which the account holder has a position.
For example, the account holder(s) who completed the Questionnaires of FIGS. 1 and 2 selected “Other” at 144 and 244, respectively, and entered “Vanguard Energy” at 147 and 247, respectively, under Description rather than entering under Ticker Symbol a ticker symbol for the “Vanguard Energy” fund that he/she owns. But the Vanguard® Group manages at least three “Vanguard Energy” mutual funds, as well as shares of an ETF (exchange traded fund) referred to as Vanguard Energy VIPERs (ticker symbol: VDE) (Table 6). The account holder's entries in the Questionnaires depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2 do not uniquely identify the “Vanguard Energy” fund in which the investor has a position.
TABLE 6Ticker Symbols for “Vanguard Energy” FundsFund NameTicker SymbolVanguard Energy Fund Admiral SharesVGELXVanguard Energy Fund Investor SharesVGENXVanguard Energy Index Fund Admiral SharesVENAXVanguard Energy VIPERsVDE
Similarly, consider an unmotivated account holder who, on completing a Retirement Plan Questionnaire similar to the ones depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2, indicates an equity position in a “cola” company by both selecting “Other” for Investment Type and entering under Description “the cola company.” This account holder has not made clear whether he/she is describing an equity position in The Coca-Cola Company (ticker symbol: KO), one of the many other companies that sell COCA-COLA® products (see Tables 1 and 2), or a competitor company such as the Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. (ticker symbol: PBG).
The accurate completion of some retirement or financial planning questionnaires (or like forms) could be of such importance that a financial services company providing the questionnaires may find it necessary to dedicate several employees to the task of reviewing the descriptions that account holders provide when they submit “Other” as identifying an Investment Type in a questionnaire. For example, if an account holder made an ambiguous or inapposite Description entry when using “Other” to identify the Investment Type in a Questionnaire like the ones of FIGS. 1 and 2, an employee of the financial services company could be required to find and communicate with the account holder in order to clarify that entry.
However, finding and communicating with potentially many account holders in order to clarify entries made in association with selecting an entry of “Other” on questionnaires is a resource-draining “backroom” operation. In addition, a company who pursues such an operation could run a risk of being perceived as intrusive toward account holders (by often communicating with account holders in order to clarify form entries).
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for improved systems and methods to assist account holders and other users complete ticker-symbol-based investment lists (e.g., for retirement plan questionnaires or financial planning questionnaires) accurately and efficiently.